"I guess you could say, things are getting pretty serious."

Silence is golden.

At least that's what we'd like you to believe since our last post was pre-Christmas.  Happy New Year, by the way.

In reality, we've been gearing up for our biggest DIY undertaking to date: a full kitchen renovation.  It takes a lot of planning, a lot of stress eating (guacamole, you are a fine companion), a lot of research and a LOT of saving.  It also takes nerve.  We've been building that up, too.  But we've finally got our proverbial ducks in a row and the big day (er...weeks) is comin' atcha Memorial Day 2015.

But this isn't about the awesome kitchen design we've devised.  The waterfall quartz countertop you'll want to lick.  The sexy built-in recycle and trash cabinets.  The hex penny tile you'll want to rub your face against.  No...that's for another day.  Today's post is about the ridiculous things that had or have to happen to make a kitchen renovation possible.

Starting with this.

Yes, our washing machine used to be in the kitchen.  No, the dryer is not cropped out or on the other side of the room.  It's in a closet off the den.  Genius.

The only place that we could figure to combine the units without doing any major reconfiguration was in the closet where the dryer is.

Only problem is...the units that came with the house didn't stack.  So after weeks of trolling Craigslist, I found a set (a mere 2 years old) being sold by a nice German man who was moving his family to China.  When we arrived to pick up the set, we looked it over briefly and I handed over the cash.  He looked at me incredulously and said "are you sure you don't want to look at it more?  Run a test load?  Check all the hinges?"  I smiled.  "No, that's alright, I can tell you took good care of them."

What I was really thinking was "this guy is Danny Tanner caliber OCD.  Like, dust-busters his vacuum, irons his jeans, chews each piece of food exactly 23 times before swallowing."  So there's my tip of the day for buying from Craigslist: if you trust the buyer, you're probably getting a good deal.  Two months of having them and they're, unsurprisingly, in excellent condition still.

So to offset some of the cost of the new purchase (albeit we got a very good deal), we sold the set we had to a cute couple who just moved in together.   Since laundry machines are typically hidden behind closed doors, I wouldn't have prioritized a new set as a purchase to be made, but we needed the function of the stacking kit to get this big renovation started.

As we pulled the old washer out from the wall to disconnect it, we realized how crudely the water line had been installed in the first place.  Big, jagged hole with random tubes coming out of it and instead of insulation in the wall cavity, they used...wait for it...

Sweatpants.

To be fair, I'm sure they probably did the intended job but if you're looking to suck the confidence out of the new homeowners, that's a pretty sure fire way to do it.  So after Nick "I'm too good to wear wall pants" Troutman disconnected all the old piping, we decided to get a professional on the job for the rest of the work.

We gathered recommendations for plumbers and decided to go with Plumber Ken to move the water line and washing box to the laundry closet.  Fun fact about Ken: he has a giant truck with flames on it.  To say Carter was a fan is putting it mildly.

If you'll notice in that picture above, a lone copper pipe was feeding the icemaker in our refrigerator too.  So we also had him put in a shiny new ice box behind the refrigerator so we could patch up that old hole and forget it ever existed.

Icemaker box, pre-wall patching.

We reconfigured some old shelves so we could have a bit of storage to the side of the pair for our laundry accoutrements and voila:

As Nick put it, they'd been in a serious relationship for about a year and it was finally time to live together.  What can I say?  He's a romantic.  And a bad joke teller.

We also replaced the ceiling fan in the kitchen and bought the most beautiful bubble pendant for our dining room you've even seen.  But in an effort to get all three of you to come back for more next week, we'll save that for another day.

We're off to do laundry now.  With both machines in one location.  Probably ought to go ahead and get #laundryballerstatus trending now that we're living the dream.